Lamar Smith won’t seek reelection to House

Rep. Lamar Smith,the controversial chairman of the House Science Committee, announced Thursday that he will leave Congress when his term ends in 2018.

The 16-term Texas Republican is one of the longest-serving members of the state’s congressional delegation, and has often tussled with academics, scientific organizations and government regulators since become Science chairman in 2013. In a letter to constituents, Smith said there were several reasons he is choosing not to seek reelection next year, including that he will complete his term as chairman of the House Science Committee. Smith said he is looking forward to spending more time with his grandchildren, and "I hope to find other ways to stay involved in politics."

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This year, Smith has been instrumental in resurfacing old allegations about Russian efforts to fund activists opposed to oil and gas drilling, an effort critics say is designed to distract from controversy over whether any members of President Donald Trump's campaign were involved with Russia's efforts to disrupt last year's election. On Tuesday, he wrote to executives at Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet requesting information about Russian purchases of anti-fracking ads on social media platforms.

Smith said he looks forward to staying busy.

"With over a year remaining in my term, there is still much to do," he wrote in the letter Thursday. "There is legislation to enact, dozens of hearings to hold, and hundreds of votes to cast."

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During the Obama administration, officials at the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department all found themselves in Smith’s cross-hairs. The 69-year-old lawmaker, who previously chaired the House Judiciary Committee, also made regular attempts to expand his committee’s jurisdiction over cybersecurity to launch far-reaching probes targeting the New York Federal Reserve, Healthcare.gov and the companies that provided software to Hillary Clinton’s email server.

He antagonized the broader science community when he touted a number of NSF grants as “frivolous” and sought to restructure how different areas of science were funded by the federal government.

Smith has also used his perch on the Science panel to undermine the Obama administration’s efforts to address climate change, elevating several global warming skeptics to question the agreement among the vast majority of climate scientists that humans are the main driver of the phenomenon.

Smith’s 21st District, which takes in parts of Austin and San Antonio as well as rural counties to the west, has been solidly Republican in the past. Mitt Romney won nearly 60 percent of the vote there in 2012.

But Trump got 52 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 42 percent in the district in 2016, and several Democrats saw an opportunity to challenge Smith before he announced his retirement. One Democrat, veteran Joseph Kopser, outraised Smith in the third quarter and has over $219,000 in his campaign account.

“The people of Texas are losing a dedicated public servant and skilled legislator, but we are confident they will select another conservative Republican like Chairman Smith who shares their values,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers (R-Ohio).

Smith' relationship with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the top Democrat on the Science Committee and a fellow Texan, has been rocky for years. Both lawmakers are soft-spoken and have served together in Congress for more than two decades. But Johnson has accused Smith of bringing “disrepute to our institution” and turning his panel into “little more than an arm of the Republican National Committee,” particularly when he started issuing subpoenas in 2013, the first in 21 years.

Smith has subpoenaed the EPA for health data used for clean air regulations, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the suspicion that a scientific paper on climate change was mishandled.